2007-Oct-1 - Taarump.taarump.....taarump.taarump......

Its about 4:30pm, the sun is just setting and outside the train window there is mile upon mile of birch trees in a brilliant array of autumn colours. The sun is not really setting that early, it’s just while we are on the train everything runs to Moscow time– a 3 hour difference to the actual local time in this case. For lunch I finished off a Kiwi Fruit yoghurt, some very stringy cheese with sardines and black bread, all bought at the local Siberian diary! By the way Ross has just mentioned the fact that apparently a lot of people wonder why New Zealanders are nicknamed after this fuzzy green fruit!!

We are now into the second day of the longest stage of our great trans-Mongolian train ride, a 56 hour stint from Tomsk in Siberia, to Moscow, the “beating pulse of new Russia”. This time we have booked passage in “Platskarny” class, which is basically third class and supposedly less comfortable than “Kupe” class. Kupe class is the one with the separate compartments we travelled in from UB. Not so. The bunks are the same (although we had to pay another $3 to get a mattress once on board – although no-one else appeared to!) with the obvious difference being no compartment doors, similar to one of the stages we travelled in China. It’s a lot cheaper, open to all the going on’s about us, which is a lot more interesting, and these are a lot less crowded than the Chinese version because there are only 2 tiers rather than 3 on each side!! We have read and heard about the amount of vodka drinking and partying that takes place on these trains (and came prepared!!) but to date it has been very sedate. Our carriage appears to be full of old ladies!!

Our stay in Tomsk was a lively introduction to the Russian way of life and its links to vodka and beer :), and, as it was Ross’s birthday, it gave us an even better reason to get to grips with the local culture. It’s also famous for its architecture which we also spent several hours touring around. We stayed with Greigory, a contact gained thru the Couchsurfing website, and slept on a mattress on the floor at his mother’s apartment. Great guy. He explained that there are only three or four of what we would recognise as “pubs” in Tomsk (a population of 500,000) but lots of restaurants where people eat and drink. And I can see why – people appear to drink all the time outside in the open, so there is no need to go to the pub! Wherever you go you see groups of young people with beer bottles in their hands, chatting and drinking. As it was explained, you drink beer to socialize and vodka to celebrate. However no one is actually drunk and you only buy one bottle at a time, then sit around outside, in the freezing cold (about 7C without the wind chill taken into account!), to talk, smoke and just enjoy the company. When that bottle is finished you wander off and buy another. When it is very cold, it gets down to -50C, I was told, you often end up chewing your beer as it freezes in the bottle!!

Our first night was spent at one of the city “pubs” where a live band was in action. It was a great night, full of dancing, toasting, handshaking and drinking!! The music was a real mixture. Uriah Heap, Beatles, U2, ELO, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, and others, all in excellent English, with a few melancholy Russian songs thrown in for good measure, and all played one after the other in no particular order. The pub was tiny compared to what we are used to at home (lucky to fit the Bickertons crowd into it!!), and was located in a cellar where everyone had to sit at tables. The cellar steps were also responsible for some memories that will last a long time for one of our party when making their way up them – but that’s another story ;) lol. In fact the night was very reminiscent of a night at the Blues Bar in Christchurch, and the Russians we met and drank with had nothing but smiles and good times to share – completely the opposite to the dour faces we had become accustomed to in the shops. There was much toasting to the fact that political differences are simply politics and that the people of the world can still be friends despite their governments. What better reason to drink more vodka!

The next day, after quite a long sleep in it must be admitted, we spent with Greigory who took us on a walking tour of the city (few young people have cars) while drinking more beer with him and his friends. Russians are very proud of their history, if not so much their politicians, and we were taken around a number of the local architectural delights. The touring ended at about 1am and we had a rough 6 hrs sleep before setting off to catch the train ... and yes I did get to see the Tom River which was the whole point of the visit :)